


Dead Woman Walking

by Edge of Darkness (arsenicarose)



Category: Criminal Minds, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: Bloodlust, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Rape and Violence, Lethal Injection, Murder, heart wrenching, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-15 09:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11228436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicarose/pseuds/Edge%20of%20Darkness
Summary: Spencer Reid finally catches up to an unsub who murdered many people. She has no remorse, but her story tears at his heart. What can he do for a tortured soul who is long gone?Notes: This is a violent fic. Please be advised that it is graphic, and might be triggering. Spencer and the unsub do NOT end up together.EDIT: Went through and tidied the grammar and fixed the random page breaks. Hope you enjoy. :)





	1. No Remorse

“I can’t stop. I _won’t_ stop. Kill me, agent.”

Spencer faced the unsub, gun drawn. Her words shook him, harder than he had expected. The knife was still in her hand, blood falling to the tiled floor below with a steady _drip, drip, drip_. He was alone. No one thought she would be here, so they sent him. They usually sent him to the less dangerous option, especially after his capture. After all these years, he was still the baby.

“Hey, it’s alright. I’m just here to talk. What’s your name? Mine is Spencer,” he said, placatingly.

Her head cocked to the side, “My name is Eryn.”

“Please, drop the knife. I can’t- I don’t want to kill you, Eryn.” Panic gripped Spencer. Could he talk her down?

“You don’t understand! I can’t stop! I’m a monster.” A crazed laugh escaped her. “I fucking love it, agent. I do.” She was splattered with blood too. It didn’t drip, like it did from the knife, but it colored her. Even her eyes seemed to be blood red in this light.

If Spencer wasn’t so terrified, he might have been impressed. She was clearly strong, and she had managed to slaughter all 6 people inside with minimal damage to herself. Their bodies were strewn across the floor. She must have been exhausted; each of the men were bulky and strong.

“Tell us your story. The FBI can help you.”

Her eyes grew cold. “You can’t help me. I am long gone.”

“There are other ways. I know some of your history. Let me help you.”

“Oh, so you can save me? I am no damsel in distress! I have saved myself. I have survived. I don’t need some bushy-tailed agent to add me to a list of successes.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” he said, getting desperate. She had started to raise the knife, to point its crimson glow at him.

“What do you mean then?”

“I know it must have been hard. Your whole life, people took advantage of you, one way or another.”

She glared at him, and he felt real fear. “How dare you presume to know me.”

“Finally, you couldn’t take it,” he continued, “You snapped. That first kill solved the problem, and you figured it would keep helping. But it didn’t. It made you paranoid, it made you want it more. You felt a blood lust.”

“Shut up.” she growled, brandishing the knife.

He held his ground, but he knew she would not hesitate to kill him. “It became about the blood. You are drenched in it. There is no way that is an accident. At least this time it isn’t your blood, right?”

“Stop, stop it! Shut up!” He could see she was shaking.

“You felt in control for the first time in your life. You connected it to the blood, his blood. You bathed in it, and you had finally felt clean. Clean from the sins others had committed against you. Clean from the sins you had committed to survive. But then the blood was just blood. You wanted that magic again. Did you find it?”

She threw her head back and screamed helplessly to the ceiling. It was a raw, painful sound, like she was screaming away everything that had ever happened to her or because of her. It tore at him, and he couldn’t help but feel for this poor woman.

“Please, don’t make me kill you…” he whispered, “Please…”

She scrutinized him, and her face softened. He felt like she was seeing him for the first time. She studied him carefully, and made a decision. The knife clattered to the floor.

Spencer slid his gun into his holster, and walked towards her. “I have to put handcuffs on you, okay?”

She didn’t speak, but held her hands out.

He cinched the cuffs on her with a familiar click, and led her out of the house. He didn’t bother to step around the pools of blood. They were so large that they fed each other. It was more accurate to call them a lake.

He called the team to update them and to request backup. She stayed silent, and didn’t fight. As he waited for the team to come, he had to ask, “Why did you give yourself up? What changed?”

He didn’t think she would answer, but after a moment’s consideration, she replied, “You don’t like killing. You don’t need to murder me. There are other ways to die.”

For some reason, his heart felt heavy as she said this, despite all the death around him. “There are other ways to live, too.”

“It’s too late for that.”

She stayed quiet for a long time as they waited for the rest of the team to arrive. He didn’t expect them to take long. Even with her cuffed and complacent, she was still dangerous.

Finally, she said, “The girl is still alive in there.”

“What girl?”

“The girl I saved from them.”

“What are you talking about?”

She laughed bitterly. “Ah, the FBI. So focused on murder than you ignore the rampant rape problem in the world. There are six of them in there. Six dead men, but one girl. Do the math, Spencer.”

“The FBI goes after rapists.”

“When they become murderers. But it isn’t all your fault. I didn’t go to the FBI, I went to the police. They were… less than helpful.”

Spencer couldn’t argue with that. Statistics rattled through his head, uselessly. He bit his lip, knowing they wouldn’t help her.

The team arrived, and crowded around him. Morgan took Eryn off his hands, and Hotch checked him for injuries.

“I’m fine, Hotch, I’m fine. She didn’t hurt me.” Spencer brushed Hotch’s hands away. “There is a girl in there, somewhere. Please, worry about me later.”

JJ and Prentiss went into the house to find her, but Spencer’s eyes were drawn to Eryn. She sat calmly in the back of the FBI vehicle, and made no motion to escape. Her eyes were fixed on Morgan, coated with anger. He could see the fear, though, just under the surface. Morgan wasn’t a rapist, so he wondered what it was about him.

JJ and Emily returned with a young woman, barely 18. She looked terrified, and her clothes were torn and bloody. Upon closer inspection, he could tell the blood was hers. Spencer wondered how much happened before Eryn had gotten there.

As the female agents walked by, Spencer asked, “Is she okay?”

The young girl looked right into him, fire in her eyes. “I’m better than okay. She saved me. They didn’t take anything but my blood.”

Emily looked conflicted, JJ hurt. They led the girl to a waiting ambulance, and she paused to wave goodbye to the murderer in the back of the FBI van. Eryn visibly relaxed, and waved back.


	2. Failed Interrogations

They got to the police station without a hitch. Eryn didn’t say a word to anyone. Only nodding in assent to her rights.

Morgan and Rossi were asking her questions, but she looked straight past them. Spencer could see her eyes weren’t really blood red, but a reflective caramel brown. She didn’t respond to them at all, except to try to get away when they got too close.

Hotch sent in JJ and Emily in when he saw this, and they had a little more luck. As they walked in, Eryn immediately asked, “Is Riley okay?”

“Riley?” JJ asked, “Is that the girl we found in the house?”

Eryn gave her a cold look and nodded.

“Riley is going to be fine. She has some minor injuries, but they will heal. How did you find her?” Emily asked.

Eryn said nothing, satisfied with Riley’s safety.

JJ and Emily tried to get something else out of her, but Eryn again refused to speak. She seemed less scared of these agents, but it was still proving to be fruitless. After an hour, they gave up, returning to the team on the other side of the glass.

“We’re not getting anything, Hotch,” Emily said.

“Yes, I see that.” Hotch rubbed his eyes. He was frustrated and exhausted They all were. Eryn had proved difficult to find. Her spree spanned 30 men across 4 states, and she was elusive as they came. Now they had her in their grasp, but they couldn’t garner any information.

Part of the difficulty was assumptions that they had had about the unsub. The violence and blood lent itself to a male offender, but the profile couldn’t fit. They couldn’t find anything to connect the victims, and it had seemed insurmountable. Finally, they found that one victim was a convicted rapist. It had been Spencer’s idea that maybe these men were all perceived rapists. It wasn’t until they had a witness, another rescued girl like Riley, that they finally realized the unsub was a female injustice collector.

“Let me try,” Spencer said, heading for the door.

“What makes you think you will succeed where Rossi and Morgan didn’t?” Hotch asked.

“Just a feeling,” Spencer replied, slipping through the interrogation room door before Hotch could say another word.


	3. Consent in All Things

“Hello, Spencer,” Eryn said as he entered.

“Hello, Eryn. I see you are talking.”

“You knew that I could.”

“Why didn’t you before?”

She fixed her intense gaze on him, and it made him feel uncomfortable. “They have all felt pain, but they hide it. They try not to let it touch them, or their work. It casts a shadow, and if they could, they would stamp it all out. Your pain is written across your entire being. You use it to help people. You use it to be better. You don’t whip it out at opportune moments, it leaks out of your pores.”

He stopped in his tracks just before the table. This elicited a grin from her. After a moment, he regained his composure and sat across from her.

“You know, other members of this team have faced what you have.”

“No, I don’t know that. I can’t read minds, Spencer.”

“And yet you just read mine?”

She laughed derisively. “No, I didn’t. You’re profilers, no? Body language can say almost as much as a mind.”

“Do you want to be a profiler?”

Her eyes lost focus, like she was seeing a past long since gone. “I did.”

“What changed?”

“Me.”

“What happened to you?”

“Don’t you already know? You told me that you had read my file.”

“I did, but that only has so much. We want to know everything, for you to tell us everything. Can you do that?”

“I could. But do you want to hear it? I’m going to die, Spencer. Can’t muddle those feelings, can we? You are too empathic for your own good.”

He frowned, not enjoying being on this end of someone’s profiling skills. “You wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But I don’t need to tell you either.”

He sighed. “We need to know, Eryn.”

“Consent in all things, Spencer. I don’t want to tell you if you don’t want to know.”

“I will know no matter who you tell. If it makes you more comfortable to tell me, please do.” This conversation felt very odd to him. He had never had a murderer worry about his well-being, especially one still covered in blood.

“Alright, but please don’t tell say I didn’t warn you. If you need a break, just let me know.”

He was made speechless by this, but nodded.


	4. First Blood

His hands find my hair and twists, grasping locks with his clenched fist. My head is yanked back, and I scream.

“Where are you going? I thought we were having fun!” Fun is punctuated with a sharp jab in my side.

Tears roll down my face unbidden. I know I shouldn’t let him get to me, but I am hurt and scared. I throw my elbow back until I feel it hit flesh. He lets out an _oof_ , and I scramble away.

He kicks my feet from under me, and the ground bites me everywhere. A “NO!” escapes me, and I throw my foot at him, but he dodges.

“I am losing patience, my dear!” he cackled, a huge grin across his face.

Fear licks an icy path down my spine, and I push myself to escape. Everything hurts, and I think I am bleeding, but I know I must escape. I run, or limp, as fast as I can. The door is reaching me, and I grab for it. I am so close…

A snake constricts around my stomach. My forward momentum is suddenly stopped and it feels like I am going to be torn in half. I look down and see a rope eating my torso.

“Did I ever tell you that I learned to herd cattle? Lassoing is a very handy skill.”

I am bathing in a frozen lake of fear. Adrenaline wires me, but I am stuck in place. I start to shake.

He uses the rope to pull me to him. I make a few final attempts to hurt him enough so I can get away, I scratch his face and stomp on his foot, but I know it is futile. He has me, I am leashed to him, but now I can see him get truly angry. The playful smirk vanishes, replaced with a creeping fury.

He slaps me across the face, so hard that I fall. He is holding the rope near where it connects to me, so I don’t fall all the way, but instead get yanked back from the ground at the last second. With a wheeze, I wonder if that was better than just hitting the ground.

“Now are we gonna play nice?” he growls.

I don’t answer. He slaps me again, and the ring on this hand violently kisses my cheek. I can feel a lipstick mark of blood bloom.

“Are we gonna play nice?!” His face is inches from mine now, and my breath is stolen from me.

All I can do is whisper, “Yes…”

“Good!” His smile returns, and he unties the rope from my waist. Before I can even think of running again, he is tying the rope around my wrists. He pulls me to a bed with hooks coming from under it every few inches.

I stop walking and use all my weight to pull back. He looks at me like one looks at a calf, with pity and mild amusement. He knows he will consume me, and soon. The rope slips from his fingers, and with all my weight, I fall to the ground.

He laughs, grabs the rope again, and pulls me swiftly to the bed. He loosens one of my wrists to give it some slack, and then loops the ropes so that my hands are spread wide above me.

“Oh no, I forgot to take off your clothes,” he teases. “How can I take off your shirt with your hands tied?”

I close my eyes and brace. My shirt bursts apart, and I feel his breath on my breasts. The bra he rips in the center, but he uses something sharp on the straps.

“That’s better.”

I open my eyes again and witness my nakedness. I pull my arms to cover myself, but they are caught in the bed, and so I remain cold and exposed.

He wiggles my jeans off me, even as I kick. “I guess I will have to tie your legs too. Shame.”

He reaches under the bed and pulls out more rope. My legs are thrust apart, and I am spread out for him, ready to be taken.

My panties are gone before I can remember them. He yanks them off me until they fall around me like shreds of confetti.

He is impatient, which I didn’t realize before, and my struggle has taken him more than he wanted it to. He is already naked and on top of me. I feel his erection press against my leg, teasing, before he shoves it inside. I gasp. I am being ripped apart, just like my clothes.

“Oooo, you are a naughty girl aren’t you. This roughness turns you on, huh? Look at your nipples, so erect. And you are so wet down there…” He looks down, and his face blanches for a moment. “Well, your nipples are erect at least.”

I tore? I crane my neck to see, and the horror chokes me. His cock is rhythmically pounding, and it is lubricated by blood. His whole pubic area is dripping with it. I suddenly feel it again. Every pound hurts more than the one before, and I just want it to stop.

He never asks if I am on my period. We both know I am not.

When he finished, he sprays it across my body. He relaxes as he strokes the last drops from him. “Now I have claimed you as mine,” he says with dark eyes, “and you will stay mine until the day you die.”

He leaves, and I cry until I cannot remember my name.

He comes to me like this day after day. The blood from the first day has awakened a need in him, and now I bleed each time, whether it is from between my legs or somewhere else. After an unknown amount of time, I am just scars. Scars and blood.

At some point, he stops tying me. He likes to toss me around, let the blood spray him. At some point, he is exhausted from orgasm, lying his sickening body against mine. I find the knife he had been using against me, held by lazy fingers. I take it from him.

“What are you going to do with that,” he grunts, lazily. He thinks I am broken. Too broken to do anything. I am not.

I jab it into his back, and he shoots up. Fury and panic course through his terrible eyes. I pull it out and hold it in front of me.

His blood seeps out, dripping on to my legs. In that moment, I know what I must do. The blade finds his throat and paints a wet, red line across it. His blood sprays from the wound, bathing me in it. I am free.

The blood is warm, and electrifying. I let him spray this fluid all over me, and the other fluids are gone from me. He can’t scream, the wound is so deep, but he gurgles his last and collapses on my body one final time.

I push his corpse off me with strength I didn’t know I had. I wander through the basement until I find the spigot he used to clean himself, and sometimes me, with. I turn the water on, hot, a luxury he never afforded me. The water feels like blood, and I clean my naked body.

My wounds have healed enough to stop bleeding, and am thankful. I promise myself that I will never bleed for another man. This wasn’t the first man, but he will be the last.

I find my way upstairs, and see light for the first time in so long. The sun is shining, welcoming me back. I bathe in it, nude, until I remember clothes and the outside world.

I steal something of his, something that is clean and smells nothing like him, and cover myself. I can’t go home now, but I don’t want to. I have a goal, a plan. The knife is still with me, and I will carry it until I die.


	5. Why Not Go To The Police?

Spencer was completely shaken. Her story was so brutal, so honest, he hadn’t expected it. As she told it, her eyes glazed over. He could see her dissociating herself from the events. A different person had faced that horror, and she had emerged from the blood, reborn. At least, that is how she told it.

He assumed that this man was Jeremy Walters, the first victim they attributed to her. There had been blood there that wasn’t his, but by the time they found the scene, it was denatured and useless. They had never found the murder weapon.

Spencer couldn’t believe he had missed it. Looking back on the scene in his mind’s eye, it was clearly a rape gone bad for the rapist. Rope was found under the bed, and he was naked. The bed had anchorage points on it, like she had said.

“What was your goal? Your plan?” he finally asked, afraid he already knew the answer.

“To find every rapist I could, and murder them, before I died.”

“So, you forfeited your life for this?”

“I died in that basement, Spencer. My life since then has been a gift, every day. If he had had his way, I would have never seen the light of day again. I have seen many sunrises since then. I am thankful for each of them.”

He could understand that way of thinking, but it hurt him to hear it. If Jeremy had been serial, they might have saved her. He had a nagging feeling that he could have prevented all of this, even though he knew that was impossible. Jeremy hadn’t even been on their radar.

\---

The rest of the team listened in horror from the other side of the glass. Rossi, Hotch, and Morgan’s faces were set in grim lines. They always had this look when an unsub had such a tragic life that it led to murderous hell. Emily’s hand was over her mouth, face streaked with sympathy. A single tear had escaped JJ, curling down her cheek to the O of horror her mouth had become.

Garcia had told them a little about the unsub when they figured out who it was. Eryn Andrews had been reported missing a year before. The killing had started six months after that. Her parents were abusive, but she escaped, managing to eke out a life for herself. She had been paying her way through college with odd jobs and scholarships.

Two years before she was captured, she went to the police to report a rape. The case had fallen through but no one knew why.

\---

“Why didn’t you go to the police? You could have pleaded for self-defense. Even if you got convicted, you would have gotten minimal jail time.”

“The police?” she scoffed, “I would never go back to them. Tried that once.”

“What happened?” Spencer asked, letting the concern fill his voice.

For the first time since he found her, she looked uncomfortable. She returned to what he could now see was a learned silence. Maybe from her abusive childhood, or maybe from what came after.

“Please, Eryn, trust me. You have been nothing but honest with us. I will believe you, if you tell me the truth.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes as the words slipped out of her. “They didn’t believe me. Said I was asking for it. A waitress uniform! I had no choice in my outfit… They…” She stopped, digging her nails into her palm.

“What did they do?” Spencer made his voice as calm as possible, as empathetic as possible.

“They… They said it was my fault. I was wasting their time… They took me to someone’s office and… took turns.” Her eyes became watery, but she blinked rapidly, refusing to cry. “They said it was to make up for the lost time.”

\---

Morgan turned away from the interrogation room and punched a wall. “This is why victims don’t trust us! Those police officers made a murderer!” he growled.

Hotch called Garcia, and said, “Garcia, look up all officers involved with the rape report made by Eryn Andrews. We need to find evidence of the officer’s sexual assault of Eryn. Find anything you can to open the door for an investigation. Those men cannot be allowed in uniform anymore.”

“Yes, sir,” Garcia replied, shakily.

Emily looked like she wanted to punch something too, but held herself rigid. JJ wanted to stop the interview and hold the poor girl, but she resisted the urge.

Rossi remained quiet. He wasn’t one to anger easily, but he was seething. He held himself cool and calm, trying not to let it out, but he wanted to punch each of those officers in the face.

\---

Spencer controlled himself. He felt no anger or pity, but understanding. He knew how little help authority figures could be. He had joined the Bureau hoping to be someone that would actually help, instead of abusing their power or ignoring the problem.

“Rest assured, those officers are being brought up on charges now. I’m sure my team is already looking into it,” he consoled.

Eryn collapsed into her chair, surprise overtaking her. “I wish I had come to the Bureau all those years ago.”

“So do I,” Spencer said, quietly.


	6. Can't Save Everyone

Eryn spent the next hour or so describing each of the murders. The stories were similar. She would go to a bar and wait for a man to refuse a no, pour something in someone’s drink, or grab a person’s body. She started with female victims, but broadened her rampage to saving male victims as well. She started to see male victims and couldn’t turn a blind eye.

Each time, she would distract the man from his original target, through sexuality or conversation, and draw him out of the situation. She would lure him back to where she would murder them, with the promise of sex, drugs, money, anything that would get them to where she needed them. Then, she would slash their throat, and bathe in their blood.

She remembered enough details about each murder to help flesh out the timeline they had started. She moved cities when she felt there had been too many in one place, and states when she felt that the cops were close.

“I wasn’t going to let the cops get their hands on me again,” she hissed, “But you, Spencer, you I could let arrest me.”

“Why?”

“The only other way out was death, and you don’t need my death on you. You saw me as a person, even with all the death and blood. I would haunt you.”

Spencer knew she was right, but didn’t confirm it.

She didn’t push him, and continued. “It will never be enough, though. There are so many out there, and I am one girl. For every man I killed, another one would be on the news. I can’t be in every club at once. I can’t save everyone.”

She looked genuinely hurt by this, and he understood that feeling too. How many people had he been too late for? How many people had died on his watch? How many people had he tried to save, but lost? Too many, and it weighed on him.

He held back from saying this though. He could understand where she had come from, but she murdered 30 people. He couldn’t condone that.

“It seems like you usually killed one man at a time though, what changed this last murder?

She shrugged. “I knew it wouldn’t be long now. Someone had to be close to finding me.”

“Eryn… Please, there is more to it than that.”

Her eyes narrowed, but not angrily. It seemed like she had no anger for him, and he wondered why.

“You are good at your job, Spencer, I’ll give you that. Fine, I will tell you what it was.”


	7. The Last Murders

I lost count of how many had died before my hands. The literal blood bath had been satiating me for a while, but it no longer completed me. My mind is filled with dread. I was doing something, but it wasn’t enough. 

I wander through the streets, feeling a lack of purpose. Someone is going to find me, and it will all end. I won’t have changed a thing. I need one last big kill, and then I can die. I can be free.

Luck is on my side that night. I see a group of men lock on to a young girl alone in the street. They are following her languidly, making no effort to hide their intentions. In fact, they seem to relish her panicked jumps and acceleration as they announce to the night what they want to do to her.

I follow them quietly. I know they won’t notice me in their reverie. They are too focused on the young body, as they see it, in front of them.

One of them scans the empty street, and I duck behind a trash can. When they believe they are alone, they grab her. Her screams rip me to pieces, and for a moment, I lose it. For a moment, I am her, clamoring to get away from huge hands and veiled threats. Pawing, touching, ripping, gasping, screaming. I collapse under the weight of my memories.

When I regain my senses, they are far away. I run after them, trying to remain hidden. They don’t notice. With the prize in hand, they have a single-minded goal. Get it to where they can have fun.

I feel murderous rage fill me, but I hold back. I can’t take them here on the street.

They drag her inside a specific house, but I don’t know why this one. I loop around the back and sneak in through an unsecured window. Just like men to not believe they need protection. Any women I know would have everything secure, double checked, triple locked.

I think I can off them one by one, but they are all gathered around the crying figure on the ground. They don’t bother to bind her. She can’t fight them all.

I see her eyes, and I know the feeling coursing through them. The fear of the end, the knowledge of what’s to come, a rising desire to die before it happens. I need to save her from it somehow.

They start tearing pieces of fabric off. They scratch her body, relishing her screams, and I can’t take it anymore. I see blood, her blood, the wrong blood, and I rush them.

I have no plan but for it not to be her. This young, innocent girl, too young to know how terrible the world is, too young to know about men following her in the dark.

I launch myself at the one closest to me, and the knife finds his back. He gasps in surprise, and I yank it out, slicing his throat before any of them know what is happening. As he falls, I lose my cover, and they see me. Hatred boils in their eyes, and all attention comes to me.

Fear prickles from some far-off place, but I have already accepted this. I turn to the girl curled on the ground, and yell, “Run!” I draw them away from her. They know they can all take me together, and she is forgotten. I see her escape, and relax.

One comes at me, and I drive the knife into his lecherous, reaching arm. I grip his shoulder for leverage, and slice open his neck. His blood sprays across me, effectively scaring the rest. They hesitate as their friend’s blood paints me crimson.

One breaks free from shock, and lunges at me. He dodges my knife and grabs my waist. Panic is real for me now as he tries to find that place where he can shove himself inside. He holds the arm with the knife down with no effort, and my weapon flails uselessly, unable to reach its target.

For a moment, I resign myself to it. The girl can call the police in her escape. I know she will. After I have been raped to death, the men will be convicted. It seems fitting that my true death will come at this end.

When his fingers find my underwear, the resignation slips away. A renewed fury fills me, and I knee him in the gut. His surprise loosens his grip, and seconds later, his blood is raining down on my face. I ignore the déjà vu as I push his heavy body off me, and go for the next.

The other three look genuinely terrified now. I have cut their numbers in half. I have nothing to live for, and that makes me more dangerous than anything they have ever faced. “What’s the matter,” I growl, blood dripping into my mouth as I speak, “Never had one who could fight back?”

They back away, muttering about how it was an accident, they didn’t mean to, they won’t do it again. I ignore their lies and strike.

The one on the far-left falls. I barely l let his spurting blood coat me before I move to the next one. He manages a single step away before his throat parts for me.

The last one is running, and I chase after him. I cannot let him escape, so I throw the knife at him. It pierces him, and he trips in surprise. I pull the blade out, and sit in front of him. He is kneeling on the ground, gasping for air as his wound seeps blood.

“Please…” he begs, but I ignore it. With one final slice, his life splatters across me. He falls sideways to the ground, eyes blank.

I look at the carnage around me, and I feel satisfied. The girl is safe, she has to be.

I stand, wondering what there is left to do. I know this is my last murder, I can feel it. The knife calls to me, and I know I could slit my own throat, but it feels wrong. I won’t bleed for these men. My knife will not be used to hurt me again. I will not stain it with new blood as the rapists' blood drips to floor.

A man’s voice fills my ears, and I turn to it, ready to attack. I couldn’t have missed one, could I? He looks terrified, but he picks his way around the bodies. His vest reads “FBI,” and I know this is the end, I have been caught.

I will not let a man in authority take me again, sexually or otherwise. He will have to kill me to take me in, and I tell him as much. But his face crumples. He doesn’t want to hurt me, I can tell. Everything about him is trying not to kill me. I don’t believe it at first, but he never shoots. He tries everything he can, and I give in.

I said I would carry the knife until I died, but I am already dead. I can see it in this man’s eyes. He doesn’t need to be the one to kill me, but I am a dead woman walking. That is close enough for me, and I drop the knife. If anyone should stop me, it should be someone who doesn’t want me to die.


	8. Hopelessness

Spencer was shocked by her story, and more sympathetic than before. Her method wasn’t good, but her intentions made sense to him.

Now he didn’t know what to do. She would be going to jail, at least. She confessed to the murder of all 30, in cold blood. The first was self-defense, but all the joy it had given her made her less sympathetic to a jury. The following murders ended any case she had.

“Spencer, I am going make this easier for you. I am a murderer. If you let me out into the world today, I would kill again tonight. I feel no regret for what I have done, and I will keep doing it. There is nothing you can do. All you can do is know why.”

He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, before finally saying, “I’ll be right back.”

He slipped out of the interrogation room to talk with his fellow agents.

\---

“Reid,” Hotch said immediately, “She is right. There is nothing we can do. She might have PTSD, but she admitted to doing these murders with a clear head. She can’t be rehabilitated. She will get a death sentence.”

Spencer’s brows furrowed. He knew this, but it was terrible. He still wanted to save her. He wanted to save them all. If he could go back in time… “I know, Hotch. I know. I just… I can’t… I don’t want to kill her.”

“You won’t,” Emily said, “She will be killed on death row.”

“But I brought her in! I killed her.”

“Would you have let her go, knowing this?” Hotch asked.

“No, of course not!”

“Exactly. Reid, there is nothing you can do. Let her go. She knows it’s coming. Say goodbye.” Hotch allowed a little sympathy into his tough exterior mask.

Spencer paced in front of the two-way mirror, occasionally looking up at her. Sometimes he saw the murderous unsub, coated in blood, unrelenting and unrepentant. Sometimes, he saw a tortured woman who couldn’t take it anymore. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

Finally, he went back in. “Do you want a lawyer?”

“No,” she said, “I plead guilty to murder of the first degree, for the twenty-nine men, and I plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter for the first man.”

“I’m sorry that it has to be this way.”

She paused for a moment. He could feel her studying him, but this time it didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. “Me too. Maybe if I had met you before all this, things would be different.”

That hurt him more than he expected, and he turned away. She had just echoed his thoughts exactly, selfish, self-serving thoughts that he shouldn’t have been having.

“Goodbye,” he whispered into the wall.

“Goodbye, Spencer.”

He walked back to the door, but just as he opened it, she said, “Wait, Spencer?”

He turned, keeping his face controlled. “Yes, Eryn?”

“Please, don’t blame yourself. That is my deathbed wish. Don’t carry my death as a burden. You did everything you could, and you didn’t kill me. I made sure of that.”

He took a steadying breath, cursing her reading abilities. “Okay.”

“Swear to me.”

“I swear that I won’t blame myself.” Or least I will try, he finished in his head.

She didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but she nodded.

He walked out the door, heart heavy. He pushed past the team, needing to escape. He could do this alone, just like her.


	9. Goodbye

Eryn got baked ziti for her last meal. Whenever her mom came to her senses for a day and realized what she had been doing to her daughter, she would make this meal for Eryn. It had always been Eryn’s favorite.

She ate slowly, savoring the taste. It was made well, and they had even brought her some garlic bread. The FBI agents had made sure none of the officers mistreated her, and she felt peaceful, even with her impending death.

She hadn’t actually heard from any of them since her sentence, but she knew they were watching out for her, or at least Spencer was. She hadn’t expected to hear from him again. Part of her wanted to, so she could selfishly take solace in one good man before she died, but most of her wanted him to forget her. She prayed he had moved to his other cases and let her go.

She felt no fear as she went down death row. She had done all she could, and this was the best she could get. Lethal injection was better than all the other ways she could have died over the years.

They wheeled her to the execution room on the gurney. She was strapped to the rolling bed, but they hadn’t needed to do that. She had accepted her fate.

They found a vein on the first try, and slid the needle in. The needle stung, but she allowed no reaction.

The first solution began immediately, though she knew it was harmless. She wasn’t lying to Spencer when she said she had wanted to be a profiler. She had been close to a criminal law degree when she had been taken, and she had made a point of researching execution methods. She couldn’t sentence someone to death without knowing what it would be like. Now she would get firsthand experience.

The curtain pulled up, and she saw her audience. Some people in the chairs had her victims faces echoing inside them. It was painful to see. She was a monster, but she didn’t want those rapists' eyes to be the last thing she saw before she died.

She was going to let her lids slip closed when she saw him. Spencer was sitting front and center, sad but supportive. She almost cried, letting out feeling unrelated to her impending death. She hadn’t realized how badly she had wanted to see him one last time. She hadn’t allowed herself to admit it. Some small part of her wanted to tell him to leave, but it was weak. She would allow herself to die looking into his kind eyes.

He nodded to show her he knew she could see him. He couldn’t smile or wave, and she understood that. What does one do in a situation like this?

“Any last words?” a gruff voice beside her asked.

“Remember what you promised, please,” she said, looking right into Spencer’s sad eyes.

He nodded again, and she knew he would at least try. That was all she needed.

She suddenly felt heavy. Even without the bindings, she couldn’t have lifted her limbs. Her gaze held Spencer’s until her eyes finally closed. She couldn’t hold them open anymore. She drifted away on a blood red sea towards an island. Spencer was there to save her from drowning. She allowed herself to be pulled to safety, and sat next to him.

“I promise, I will let you go,” he whispered.

Then, everything went black.


End file.
